


Some rules can't be broken

by DiseasedBreeze



Series: Slade/Jason Week 2019 [5]
Category: Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Assisted Suicide, Character Death, Established Relationship, M/M, Slade/Jason Week 2019, post under the red hood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 19:39:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18531811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiseasedBreeze/pseuds/DiseasedBreeze
Summary: Slade is a man of morals. Though others may doubt it he is a highly moral man. He has a code by which he lives his life, a code he must adhere to because without the rules he wouldn't be a man any more. His code demands that if he has taken a contract, he must complete it, no matter the cost to himself. He has sacrificed worse to his code; he cannot falter now.He has accepted a contract to kill the Red Hood. He did not agree to kill Jason Todd.Can be read as a sequel to Caring about me is someone else's problem.





	Some rules can't be broken

The Red Hood must die.

There’s no two ways about it, he accepted the contract and now here he was. Even if he didn’t have the perfect record he’d once had (clients didn’t mind that he’d failed to kill Batman but he sure did) he was still Deathstroke. He followed his Code and his Code was that once he took a contract, it _would_ be completed.

Surprisingly this wasn’t the first time he’d been contracted to kill a Red Hood. It seems Gotham grew criminals with that moniker like an apple tree grew apples. The most famous one went by a different name now, but it was only a matter of time before _someone_ new stepped up to the plate.

It wasn’t like this ‘Hood was any golden boy. There’d been a bag of severed heads after all. Even if _they_ had deserved it, things like that had a knock-on effect that ended up bleeding people down the road. People who _had_ been running profitable businesses until then and wanted to get back to it.

Slade had given up trying to follow the politics of Gotham’s underbelly a long time ago; it wasn’t as much an underworld as a prolonged societal collapse.

There were a lot of ways he could do this. The client hadn’t been specific (and some of them got _very_ specific), which gave him free reign. He could have popped him from the rooftop or slipped cyanide in his drink or locked the doors and torched the building.

There were a lot of options that didn’t require him to be standing over his bed at five AM. The sky was already lightning to a pale blue with the promise of sunrise. It’s outlining the drawn curtains in light. He tells himself the reason he’s waited until now is to avoid the Bat interfering. If he’s interrogated, that’s what he’ll say.

In truth he wanted to see what was under the Hood’s mask before he offed him. Slade had lived through some interesting times and killed enough colorful psychopaths to fill a small neighborhood. As far as crims that had taken a swing at the Bat go he’d been reasonably successful. It had come to be a measure of how good a new Gotham crook was if they managed to use Joker in their debut and survive it. It weeded out the ones who can’t cut it very efficiently.

The Red Hood had passed that test twice over, not only using Gotham’s biggest name in pointless cruelty to good effect but nearly putting one over him and the Bat both. Slade admired that. It took more than guts to fuck those two over and make a clean getaway. It would almost be a shame to kill him.

It was a mistake to come here.

He could have killed the boy at a distance; he could have done it easily, still could. The boy had _lost_ , he was injured and exhausted. His fledgling criminal empire had failed.

This was the most dangerous time for anyone who tangled with the Bat. Gotham villains were in a sense self-policing; they applied a very strict quality control except where entertainment was involved. If you were enough of a threat to count as _competition_ they were worse than sharks when blood was in the water.

The boy isn’t sleeping. Slade had watched over enough sleeping people to tell. He was aware that Deathstroke was there, or at least that someone dangerous was there, but he was also too exhausted to be alert. He was dozing, a state between alert and helpless, like a weapon waiting for the trigger to be pulled. It’s cute.

Slade recognizes him.

It’s not unusual in his line of work, and it hadn’t stayed his hand before, but Slade knows there was more to this contract than he’d been told.

Before he was the ‘Hood he’d been a bird.

Not just a bird, one of the best. It hadn’t been enough to save him.

The Bat had left him to die.

That thought makes a bitter rage settle in Slade’s stomach. Batman had a choice between sacrificing his child or the lives of civilians and he had chosen to let his son die, no, he had _killed_ him.

To be killed in that way, then to come back to find your death had gone _unavenged,_ not because he _couldn’t_ but because he _wouldn’t_ avenge you…The Bat had earned every bit of the ‘Hood’s anger, every twinge of pain had been deserving. A father had a duty to protect his children. If he failed even in that he had a duty to avenge them.

Slade tries not to think of holding Grant’s body in his arms, knowing he’d died because of him. He nearly manages it.

The ‘Hood was resting so _peacefully,_ not because he was weak and unaware (and Deathstroke feels a strange pride in that), but because he’d accepted this state of affairs. It reminds him too much of the calm his own children had, knowing he was watching them sleep. The ‘Hood has one hand under his pillow, tucked under his head with his fingers curled around the hilt of a knife. His other hangs over the side of the bed and wraps around the grip of a loaded gun, his finger already resting on the trigger and the safety off. He looks like a little angel. Slade’s instinct is to lean in, dodge the first instinctual spray of bullets, sweep the boy’s hair back from his forehead and kiss it as he climbed into bed next to him. He’d done it before, back when he hadn’t been the Red Hood, he’d just been Jason, back when he’d been a client not a target.

Slade had noticed with interest the disappearance of the competition on the Demon’s dime. Ra’s was hardly a bad employer if you followed his unspoken rules, but those who got greedy got their just desserts. More interesting that noting who died was looking at who survived and what they had in common. He hadn’t been hired by Talia; the weapon she’s forged to point at the throat of her Beloved had come to him of his own accord. He’d been prepared for a fight when the boy decided there was nothing more he could learn. Instead the boy had ended up sharing Slade’s bed and with it the reason for his rage.

Slade breathes out a soft sigh and the sleeping figure stirs.

“Going to kill me with the mask on, Old Man?” Jason mutters without opening his eyes.

There’s no point in pretending they both don’t know why he’s here. There’s no point in pretending the wounded thing in front of him could do more than delay the inevitable. There’s no point in asking him to break the contract. They both know it.

The Red Hood must die here.

“No.” Slade sighs and pulls the mask off at the same time he climbs into the bed next to him. “I’m not.”

Jason’s finger trembles on the trigger, a small irritated huff leaving his mouth at the instinctive desire to shoot. Instead he lets himself be gathered up in Slade’s arms and leans against Slade’s chest. The assassin can feel the faint tremble of his body. As much as he would deny it the boy was weak, weaker than Slade had seen him before. The final battle had taken more out of him than simple wounds could. Jason was exhausted in every way a person could be; physically, mentally and spiritually. That flame of rage that had warmed him inside had burnt out. Slade aches to hold him close and nurse him back to health, but he can’t.

“So this is how it ends…” Jason mutters under his breath, so faintly Slade reads in in the twitch of his throat rather than hears it.

The desire to whisper a soft reassurance in his ear burns in Slade’s chest. He never should have come here; he should have popped the boy’s head like a cherry from 200 feet. All the excuses he’d made about respecting a worthy opponent and securing the area had been for his own benefit. Now he was here all he wanted to do was gather Jason, gather the _Red Hood_ , up in his arms and carry him away, away from the world hurt him.

But he can’t. He is bound by contract. The contract could not be broken. Without his code he would be nothing, he cannot break the contract.

Not even to protect someone.

Not even to save an innocent.

Not even for love.

“It won’t hurt.” Slade gives the only reassurance he can.

The words ‘you promised you would never hurt me’ fill the silence between them.

“I’m not afraid to die.” Jason says. This voice isn’t full of his usual bravado, like a hero facing death with dignity. It is something much worse, the bleached empty weariness of someone who had lived for revenge and had that taken away from him. He sounds tired, so very tired. Too tired to fight for his life.

The words ‘I’m sorry’ line themselves on Slade’s tongue but they were shallow, hollow things, and he can’t say them. Just being sorry meant nothing, it was a mindless response of someone trying to absolve themselves of guilt and deny responsibility for their actions. What was to come may be inevitable, but it was still happening by his hand. No-one else was doing it.

As much as he wants to he can’t hold Jason forever. The longer he waits the more it’s going to hurt and the more likely it becomes that he’ll abandon his morals and run away with the broken bird. At least he can make it painless for Jason. He allows himself a moment of weakness to run his fingers through the boy’s hair as he takes out the bottle. The clear liquid in it could almost be water, that was the point of it. It was odorless, tasteless and could easily be added to an existing drink. It was a new favorite of assassins wanting to make a clean kill. He plants a last kiss on Jason’s forehead.

“I need you to drink this.” He says, keeping his tone professional. It goes unsaid that if Jason doesn’t drink it willingly he will have to force him to.

“Very Romeo and Juliet.” Jason notes and takes the bottle from him.

“It’s what the customers demand.” Slade replies and uncorks the bottle of poison.

“It’s not going to hurt, right?” Jason says and grins a wry, tired smile. “Bottom’s up.”

He drains the bottle in a single gulp. Slade takes the bottle from him before he can drop it and carefully lays him back down before the twitching can start. He pulls the blanket back over the boy before taking the gun from his hands before he can fire it. The boy’s fingers twitch in a weak spasm. Slade finds the helmet and rests it on the pillow next to him.

A rattling gasp leaves Jason’s mouth, then his heart stops. A mouthful of foam and saliva spills onto the pillow beside him as the last twitches stop. Slade confirms the kill with a photo, the hardware censoring the boy’s face before automatically completing the contract and destroying all evidence of it apart from the deposit in his bank account.

The contract now complete he returns to the boy’s side and starts to perform CPR. He takes the pen filled with antidote from the pocket beside the poison and empties it into a vein. The drug to restart a stopped heart floods the boy’s veins as Slade breathes for him, forcing air into his lungs and coaxing his heart into beating again. Nearly a minute passes before Jason’s body arches against the bed and he starts breathing. The boy’s fingers twitch with an instinctive attempt to protect himself and Slade shushes him as he goes over the rest of the procedure. He hadn’t been dead for long enough for serious brain damage, but he doesn’t know how much Jason remembers. There’s a wordless question in the boy’s eyes.

“They paid me to kill you.” Slade tells him. “They didn’t pay me enough to make sure you stayed dead. I’m giving you a second chance at life. Do something to earn it.”

He kisses Jason on the forehead on last time before he leaves without looking back.


End file.
